Annually 1500 female children are not born in Armenia due to sex-selective abortions. The bill proposed by the Armenian Health Ministry which makes informing parents of the sex of a fetus until 30 weeks of pregnancy illegal, notwithstanding the possible corruption risks, aims at eliminating the ‘son-centrism’ among the Armenians.

During the research which was conducted from November 2013 to April 2014 researcher Victoria Burnazyan studied the workload of 100 small hydroelectric power plants on 47 rivers, as well as conducted environmental impact assessment for 25 plants and checked compatibility of their work with international conventions and RA legislation.

Only 10 Armenian citizens will be traveling to Brazil to attend the 20th FIFA World Cup Brazil. The Embassy of Brazil in Armenia has so far received and processed 10 visa applications, all of which are approved, with two visa applicants winning a World Cup tour and one applicant going to assist the organizers as a volunteer.

The intent of the EU visa facilitation process is to change the current communication atmosphere between Europe and Armenia though the visa privileges are offered only to certain categories of Armenian citizens.

The Armenian parliamentary opposition parties question the credibility of the new Government headed by Hovik Abrahamyan, expecting little from the recent proposed program. However, the governing Republican Party insists on allowing the newly established Government time to carry out its program.

The lawyers of Vardan Petrosyan (whohas been under arrestfor over 6 months already) qualify hispretrial detention as an unreasonable act and transgression of the presumption of innocence principle. Therefore, they intend to apply to the European Court of Human Rights.

To resolve the “March First” case the Special Investigation Service ought to involve in the case a number of Armenian and Karabakh high-level officials, militaries and the then marz governors, as well as carry out a comprehensive public investigation into the country’s deadly post-election unrest, subsequently reporting the findings to the public.

Armenia and Azerbaijan do not rebuff the statement of James Warlick, US co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group. His May 7 speech entitled ‘Nagorny Karabakh: Keys to a Settlement’ does not contain anything new.

Irrespective of status of signing the European Union Association Agreement, Armenia remains a member state of the Council of Europe (CoE). Consequently, the Council will continue its support to Armenia through projects aimed at fostering democracy, human rights and rule of law.

While the representatives of state authorities claim that additional release of 70 million cubic meters of water from Sevan essential for the irrigation of Ararat Valley will not result in a negative water balance in the lake, the environmentalists believe that there is a different reason for the additional water release and that it will damage the lake’s eco system considerably.